Stone Mattress by Margaret Atwood, review: 'rich in sly humour'

Pulpy thrills abound in Margaret Atwood’s short stories

Margaret Atwood is a feminist writer of science fiction who has distanced herself from both feminism and science fiction. It’s not surprising to find the stories in her new book dramatising questions of gender and genre, although that’s rather a dry way to describe a collection rich in sly humour and pulpy thrills.

In the first story, fantasy writer Constance reflects in widowhood on an affair she had in Sixties Toronto with Gavin, a poet who belittled her work even as it funded his lifestyle. Another story shows him, old and ill, meeting a researcher who wants to discuss his poems, but what they really want to know is which character he inspired in Constance’s fictional universe, Alphinland.

Botched attempts at one-upmanship fuel much of the comedy. When Gavin’s latest wife tells Constance that her book group only reads serious novels (“right now they’re tackling Bolaño”), she spoils the pose by adding that she’s preparing a themed snack of tortillas for its next meeting.

Atwood isn’t just poking fun at petty literary politics here; she’s participating in them. But if she seems to imply that some readers aren’t the right kind, her dedication to entertainment saves her from accusations of snobbishness. Witness the title story’s first line: “At the outset Verna had not intended to kill anyone.”

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The tone varies, from the melancholy testimony of an outcast daughter whose parents fake her death, to a jolly anecdote about a cancer victim who stole her friends’ lovers and has now returned to life as a dog. What Atwood most favours are madcap B-movie scenarios. A drug-running antique dealer, prone to erotic daydreams about his own autopsy, discovers a freeze-dried corpse in a storage unit; the author of a hit horror novel plots to murder the flatmates who bought shares in his unfinished manuscript when he couldn’t afford the rent.

It’s hard not to notice that the one male character who isn’t a sleaze is also gay. Fecklessness and infidelity are a given: when Atwood writes from a man’s point of view, it’s usually so she can hang him out to dry, as with the antique dealer, who thinks his wife will have to overlook his shortcomings because she isn’t a “hot babe”.

In the final story, “Torching the Dusties”, a militant youth group surrounds a nursing home, cutting off its supplies. It reads as if Atwood feared the book featured too many OAPs. You feel her sympathy fork in two as she gives airtime to a perspective she won’t presume to inhabit; we follow the frightened residents, not the protesters chanting “Our turn!” in baby-face masks outside.

Comic cameos from overzealous readers (Freudian scholars, fantasy fans in fancy dress) mock the notion that an author’s work reflects their life. At the same time, the stories tend to portray writing as an act of revenge, as when Constance puts a one-time love rival in Alphinland, “immobilised by runic spells inside a stone beehive”. But words are only words, as Atwood seems to know. She takes the book’s title from a story about a woman raped at 14 by a man she meets again 50 years later on a cruise. Her revenge? A rock to the skull.